Monday, August 15, 2011

After the Kings of Leon canceled the remainder of their U.S. tour earlier this month, following lead singer Caleb Followill’s noted on stage antics
and alleged alcohol problem, their self-imposed hiatus has led many
around the music industry to offer his or her unsolicited opinion. “I
have a hard time with musicians who act like pricks because it just
makes me mad,” Isaac Hanson, eldest member of the Oklahoman trio Hanson,
told WENN. Yes, Hanson has emerged from his peaceful fatherhood and minor success of his band’s latest album Shout It Out
to criticize the Grammy-winning group. “If you’re actually making a
living [making music], pinch yourself every day, because it goes if you
don’t love it and people will eventually get pissed off,” he said.
Spoken like a true veteran. Hanson, whose band has recorded eight albums
since 1995, also warned KOL about potential backlash that may come from
disappointing their fans:

I’m going to call somebody
out on it—the Kings of Leon are running some risks. They’re irritating
people and you can’t do that too much. Eventually the bad boy image
affects fans’ willingness to show up. Their fans will get bummed out.
Everybody has their demons, everyone has their challenges. I’m a bit of a
hothead in certain circumstances, but you’ve got to temper it because
your fans are there and they’ve paid good money to see a show, and you
gotta bring it.

Kings of Leon appear to be united in the decision to cancel the tour—with members reportedly encouraging Followill to enter rehab—yet brother Jared has not shied away from expressing his frustrations on Twitter,
leading Hanson to compare the problems within KOL to Oasis, and the
very public feud between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher. “It made it
hard for people to have a lot of fun at their shows because they were
worried that Noel [Gallagher] was going to get pissed off and walk off,”
he explained. While we’re sure the Followill brothers and their
bandmates are none to pleased about Hanson’s bold commentary on the
band’s “internal problems,” the squeaky clean boys turned family men
have managed to maintain a strong following over the years, cultivating a
successful career all from that little debut single
named after unspecified onomatopoeia. Their opinion might actually be
worth a listen or two? Or KOL can just fire back with some nasty,
exhaustion-driven comments, leading to an all-out Battle Over Oklahoma. Now that’s a collaborative album we’d want to hear.